What is a Gaming Mode on an AV Receiver?

A gaming mode is a special setting that allows you to experience your favorite games without the TV’s sound interfering with your experience. At first glance, it seems like a single remote should handle this task, but unfortunately, that is not the case. The main reason for this is that games use different audio formats than movies and TVs. For example, games usually come with uncompressed PCM or multichannel WAV, whereas movies and TV shows mostly contain compressed audio formats like MP3, Dolby Digital, etc.

It is where a game mode comes to help, as it decodes these sounds and allows you to enjoy your favorite games without any interference from movies or TV shows that are playing simultaneously on your AV receiver.

A game mode on an AV receiver is a particular setting that optimizes sound and pictures for video games. It provides the best performance for games by allowing the image processing delay measured in frames to be reduced. While this is not noticeable in many cases, it can result in faster real-time responsiveness when playing fast-moving video games.

How to activate a game mode or AV receiver?

A separate button can activate game mode on most AV receivers quickly. It is typically marked as ‘GAME,’ usually located close to the volume control section.

One more way to activate Game Mode is to Press and Hold the ‘AUDIO MODE’ button until ‘GAME’ appears on display.

Another way is to Press the ‘GAME’ button on the remote control. Some AV receivers have a separate jack or HDMI port that enables game mode.

What else is essential to get a good gaming experience?

It is essential to configure your AV Receiver for optimal Gaming Experience.

First of all, make sure the Speaker system is connected correctly and configured properly to your Monitor/TV. If you use a separate Subwoofer and Centre speaker, make sure those two speakers are also appropriately connected. And make sure that there is enough space between each Speaker to produce sounds properly without causing any echoes. Also, keep some distance between your Surround Sound Speaker system / Subwoofer and Centre speaker from the walls to avoid any echoes from the wall.

Next, connect your Video output to your Monitor/TV. If you are using an HDMI cable, make sure that this is connected to your Monitor/TV before it’s plugged into the AV Receiver.

To configure an AV Receiver for Gaming, you need to plug in the “Input Select” of your AV Receiver with the “Game” option or turn on game mode.

Can I play games without gaming mode or AV receiver?

Yes. You can play games without turning on the gaming mode of the AV Receiver.

If you want to use the game console with your TV, you need to connect them with an HDMI cable and power cord or A/V cable (red/white) since there is no video processing involved in the connection process. If your plasma TV and the game console support ARC function, you can also use an HDMI connection to connect them.

However, to get smoother gameplay and better sound quality, it is recommended to use a gaming mode. In this case, you don’t have any latency between video and audio. In addition, gaming mode turns on some special audio processing for more intuitive sound.